The importance of Equifund VCs for the scaling-up of the national innovation ecosystem Summary Equifund, a fund-of-funds program created by the Greek government and the European Investment Fund, acts as a much needed public-private partnership to power entrepreneurship domestically. The final panel of Innovative Greeks brought together six VC fund partners in addition to two ministers overseeing the economic development dossier to reflect on the past decade of development and what is needed to be done to enter the next phase.
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Yannis Tsakiris: It was our belief that the economy of knowledge should be at the core of [Equifund’s] plan. And this means gradually shifting our production towards projects and services of high added value and full capitalization of the highly skilled workforce and especially young graduates. Alexis Charitsis: The logic behind Equifund in 2016 [was to look at the] optimal way to utilise the available funding, both national and European. It was our belief that the economy of knowledge should be at the core of this plan. Myrto Papathanou: [Greece has proven that it] can produce technologies from technology companies that can productize and commercialise. [Companies] that can sell to the world from their inception. Aristos Doxiadis: The main reason why [Greece is strong in the biomedical space is that it] is a cross disciplinary sector. It is not just software engineering, it requires chemists, chemical engineers, mechanical engineers, etc. and doctors, of course. And in Greece, we have a lot of people who are highly qualified in those sectors who can't get a good job unless they get a job in a startup. George Tziralis: Building [a] startup takes a few years, building an ecosystem takes even more years. [...] Rome wasn't built in a day. And the Greek startup industry is going to take some time to grow. And I think that's fine [because] at the end of the day, we all are in it for the long run. Katerina Pramatari: We have a lot of untapped potential [in research as a sector]. It is a hard field, it requires a lot of work, [...] but the cases that really make it out of this area, represent the great successes and with very great potential, but also very high impact as well. Dimitris Kalavros-Gousiou: As [a national competitive] advantage I would argue [for] what I call a Greek entrepreneurial stamina is perhaps the one single, soft skill we have developed throughout the past decade. Apostolos Apostolakis: Point taken for all of us in the panel [that] we have to keep our sleeves rolled up and continue so that we deliver returns so that the public reinvests [in the ecosystem too].
Key Takeaways The venture capital panelists described their investment portfolios of investments starting with Katerina Pramatari, Partner at Unifund. She noted that Unifund has invested in 23 companies to date, seven of which coming from the academic ecosystem. She highlighted the soaring progress of Flexcar and Kinvent's work with physical therapists around the globe. Myrto Papathanou, Partner at Metavallon, shared some details on how her fund is distributing €32 million across 24 companies. They focus mainly on B2B companies and founders in proprietary defensible tech. She puts a spotlight on Better Origin "who's using bioprocessing to convert waste into animal feed", Ferryhopper in the travel space and Biopix-T, a molecular diagnostic device. George Tziralis, representing Marathon Venture Capital on the panel, said they have made 10 investments all working with Fortune 500 companies, the majority of which have already raised Series A rounds. To date, the portfolio has raised over €100 million. Dimitris Kalavros-Gousiou, co-Founder & General Partner at Velocity, focuses on pre-seed and seed investing with 24 million under management of the Equifund family. He focused on PushMe, Equifund's first exit and since acquired by TIER Mobility.
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